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For more than two centuries Marie Antoinette has been vilified as the heartless, frivolous queen who spent lavishly while her people starved. Now, in the tradition of The Birth of Venus and The Other Boleyn Girl, this moving novel tells her side of the story.
Imagine that, on the night before she is to die under the blade of the guillotine, Marie Antoinette leaves behind in her prison cell a diary telling the story of her life--from her privileged childhood as Austrian Archduchess to her years as glamorous mistress of Versailles to the heartbreak of imprisonment and humiliation during the French Revolution. Carolly Erickson takes us deep into the psyche of France's doomed queen: her love affair with handsome Swedish diplomat Count Axel Fersen, who risked his life to save her on the terrifying night the Parisian mob broke into her palace bedroom intent on murdering her and her family; her harrowing flight from France in disguise, her recapture and the grim months of harsh captivity; her agony when her beloved husband was guillotined and her beloved son was torn from her arms, never to be seen again.
Erickson brilliantly captures the queen's voice, her hopes, her dreads, her suffering. We follow, mesmerized, as she reveals every detail of her remarkable, eventful life, from her teenage years when she began keeping a diary to her final days when she awaited her own bloody appointment with the guillotine.
评论 (4)
《学校图书馆杂志》(School Library Journal)书评
Adult/High School-Best known for her highly readable biographies of European nobility, Erickson tries her hand at historical fiction. She approaches the life of one of France's most notorious queens from a first-person perspective, which allows her cleverly to blend fact and fiction. The diary spans 24 years, from Marie's childhood in Vienna to the eve of her execution. She is married to Crown Prince Louis at age 14 to form a political alliance. Her husband is shy and reclusive, given to escaping to the woods to catalog plants, and has little interest in women, including his wife. Even after he becomes Louis XVI, his eccentricities keep him cut off from the world. Marie Antoinette, meanwhile, hides her loneliness in extravagant parties and frivolous expenditures. No wonder that as the years progress both sovereigns are more and more out of touch with the populace. Erickson's picture of the queen is much different from the uncaring, "Let them eat cake" persona that is popularly evoked. There is no attempt to hide her tragic flaws, but her generosity, good intentions, and deep love for her children humanize her and make her more of a three-dimensional character. The use of the diary is, at times, contrived and awkward: in an attempt to provide background information, the queen's writing is inconsistent in places. However, this is an excellent piece of historical fiction, and a valuable companion to more accurate biographies.-Kim Dare, Fairfax County Public Library System, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
出版社周刊评论
Historian Erickson (Bloody Mary; To the Scaffold; etc.) makes her first foray into fiction with this invented journal kept by the notorious queen who was sent to the guillotine during the French Revolution in 1793. Recounting her childhood as Austrian Archduchess Maria Antonia, her marriage to feckless Frenchman Louis XVI and her na?ve pangs of conscience about hungry peasants clamoring at the gates of Versailles, Erickson delivers a spirited blend of fiction and fact. While Marie Antoinette's love affair with Swedish nobleman Axel Fersen is well-documented, other characters pivotal to Erickson's plot are pure fabrication: swarthy servant Eric, his jealous wife, Amelie, and the queen's confessor, Father Kuthibert. These inventions add color to the story of the ruler inaccurately linked to the phrase "Let them eat cake!" The novel's narrative engagingly reflects Marie Antoinette's progression from privileged adolescent to royal mother of four (though only one daughter and son survived into adulthood), and Erickson's descriptions of pomp and circumstance lend flavor and flair. While France's most infamous queen was clearly more sybarite than saint, Erickson's lively account reveals a woman whose bravery and resilience seem as noteworthy as the bloody details of her demise. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus评论
Erickson (Lilibet: An Intimate Portrait of Elizabeth II, 2004, etc.) tries to get inside the mind of Marie Antoinette and winds up reinventing her as a Harlequin romance-style heroine. As represented in this fictional diary, which she began keeping at age 13, Marie Antoinette is no Mensa candidate, to be sure--but what leading lady in a melodrama is? Like girls her age, she's obsessed with boys and her burgeoning libido. Unlike other girls, however, she's forced into an arranged marriage to the heir to the throne of France at age 14. Leaving her home and family is understandably traumatic, and, as any student of European history knows, the hits just keep on coming. Her life has all the makings of a prime-time soap opera, and we're in for a sudsy ride as young Antoinette falls for her stablehand, marries pudgy prince Louis XVI, gets sexual tips from the local courtesan, is indoctrinated into the malicious backbiting world of the King's court, becomes Queen, takes a gallant Swedish lover and pops out a few kids. Between parties and bouts of swooning over her Swede, Antoinette develops an affection for and loyalty to her dotty, neurotic husband. She also becomes increasingly aware that something is amiss in her adopted country--why are those pesky peasants throwing mud at the palace gates? Oh! It's because they're starving! Her diary entries at age 30 are strikingly similar to those at 14, only her interests have widened to include fashion, sex and palace politics, i.e., bossing people around. When the French Revolution comes pounding at her door, she's struck dumb by its severity. As the public cries for her blood, she finally grasps the seriousness of the situation, and, seemingly overnight, becomes tender-hearted and goes to the guillotine with her head held high. More pulp romance than historical fiction. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
《图书馆杂志》(Library Journal )书评
A highly regarded biographer tries her hand at fiction, here reconstructing the life of Marie Antoinette in a diary she putatively wrote while waiting to be guillotined. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.